On Thursday the 8th January I’m launching my 16 min composition “E Waru Reo Ki Kawatea – The Voices of the Taoka Pūoro from Okain’s Bay Maori and Colonial Museum”.

The installation is being hosted by The Auricle (Christchurch) which is run by Cantabrian Society of Sonic Artists Inc. The Auricle is the only dedicated sonic arts gallery in Aotearoa and provides an octophonic playback, which is 8 separate channels, in comparison to stereo which has 2 channels. My composition is mixed for octophonic playback.

In mid 2014 I took a trip to Okains Bay Māori and Colonial Museum in order to record their unique collection of taonga pūoro (Māori musical instruments) for this project. Murray Thacker has been collecting artefacts all his life and in 1975 he bought the cheese factory in his native Okain’s Bay to house his ever growing collection. In 1977 he donated the Museum to Aotearoa and so the collection at Okain’s Bay Māori and Colonial Museum is now ‘ours’ as Murray Thacker sees it as belonging to all New Zealanders. It is this generous ethos that gave me access to play these taonga tāwhito (ancient treasures), as most museums have very strict rules on handling artefacts, let alone playing them!

If you are in Otautahi Christchurch check out The Auricle.  “E Waru Reo Ki Kawatea – The Voices of the Taoka Pūoro from Okain’s Bay Maori and Colonial Museum” runs continuously for all of January.